This Lake
by brendonwentz
Summary: Sitting by the lake on a warm Saturday afternoon at Hogwarts, Harry and Hermione come together in what I hope to be quite a sweet little one shot. Enjoy, R&R.


The sun sent a gentle shimmering wash of gold over the blades of grass that were lightly swaying in the breeze from the lake. The lake that added a very picturesque feel to the already beautiful grounds of Hogwarts. Harry sat alone, leaning against the tall, sturdy trunk of a large oak tree that he, Hermione and Ron had all favoured over the other trees since they had discovered it in their second year at the Wizarding school.

It crossed Harry's idle mind that he should probably be doing some sort of revision for his upcoming NEWT exams but the warmth of the sun on his face and the gentle sound of the wind pushing the edge of the lake to lap against the shore told him otherwise. He was more relaxed than he thought he had ever been in his life and a small smile emerged across his face.

"Somebody looks a little too happy." A familiar voice remarked, Hermione was standing opposite him with a bag slung over her shoulder and her arms folded across her chest in an utterly disapproving manner. "Harry, you should be revising." She told him, sternly. Her eyebrows knitted into a furrowed, slightly irritated expression.

"Hermione its a Saturday." He groaned, closing his eyes, "do you happen to know what 'relaxing' means?" He asked her sarcastically.

She hit him over the head with a roll of parchment she had just taken out of her bag and sat down next to him. "As a matter of fact, I do." She said,haughtily. "And my favourite way to relax, happens to be when accompanied by a lovely, big book."

Crossing her legs, she began pulling all sorts of books Harry had never before seen in his life, out of her bag and piling them up next to him. There were spell books, text books, biographies of some sort and many others; all of which were probably acquired from the restricted section of the library – one of Hermione's favoured areas for research.

"I'm 90% sure you don't need half of those." Harry said, picking up the top spell book and turning it over to examine it. He blew the dust off and laughed at the sizeable cloud that flew into the air around them.

Hermione snatched it off of him. "It doesn't matter whether I need them or not, you can't get down marked for the use of your own knowledge."

Sighing, Harry slumped further down against the tree and closed his eyes. The sun felt good on his face and he felt as if this moment could not get much better. He felt quite at home with the sound of Hermione's quill scratching away relentlessly at something or the other.

"Where's Ron?" Harry asked, suddenly realising the absence of the third member of their usual party.

"With Lavender of course." Hermione grumbled. She spat the girls name with a definite degree of venom.

Harry winced and opened one eye to shoot Hermione a sideways glance, he knew his friend was not too impressed with the recent pairing of Ron and Lavender.

"How are feeling about that?" He asked, gently.

"Perfectly fine." Said Hermione, smiling. "Why would I feel anything other than happiness for the two of them?"

Harry gulped and took a deep breath, he wasn't sure that what he was about to say was the correct thing to say or whether this was the correct moment to say it but...

"Well, because you have feelings for Ron don't you?" He asked.

Hermione slammed her book shut and looked at Harry, he expected her to have the face of someone who had been terribly offended or at least a slightly angry expression, but no, she was stilling smiling – a perfectly genuine smile.

"Honestly Harry, you do not keep up with current affairs do you?" She sighed, patting him on the knee, "I got over that weeks ago."

He was slightly taken-a-back by the news, there he had been, thinking that Hermione was heartbroken by Ron's new relationship and worrying that he would have to be there for her and comfort her if she ever got upset – something he wasn't sure how to do when it came to girls.

"Oh, right...well, that's good I suppose." He stammered, looking at her with one eyebrow slightly raised, "what happened then?" He asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "For goodness' sake." She tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear and leant towards him. "You were right I supposed, there was a point when I did have," she paused and swallowed, "feelings for Ronald, and I was outraged by his relationship with Lavender and absolutely disgusted by them snogging in every corner of the common room possible, but something happened that made me realise I didn't actually fancy him any more."

Harry nodded, "yeah, and what was that?"

"I realised that I didn't actually fancy Ron, I just quite fancied the idea of going out with someone."

Girls. What on Earth went on in their minds? Were their brains really so complex that to try and get them into a relationship they would convince them that they fancied someone they didn't actually fancied? Talk about confusing.

"Right." Harry nodded. "Well, I'm glad you got that all cleared up."

Hermione smiled and nodded and turned back to her book. The sun highlighted the profile of her face with a glittering, whitish gold colour and the breeze gently brushed her caramel coloured curls across the side of her cheek.

Something very unusual happened to Harry at that moment, his breath seemed to get hitched in his chest as he looked at, who he thought was, his best friend and his heart beat seemed to increase ever so slightly. He shook his head and cleared his throat a little, he was probably suffering from heart burn or something.

"Its awfully warm today isn't it?" Hermione commented, placing her book down on the grass in front of her and manoeuvring her arms out of her cardigan, she seemed to be struggling a little. Harry leant forwards and helped her tug the material so her arm could slip out. She looked at him, a little shyly, as if wandering why he had the decency to help her out, but she didn't comment.

"Thanks." She said quietly, picking her book back up and letting herself become submerged by the contents.

Harry noticed that the buttons on her shirt were undone lower than usual. He could see the edge of her sharp collar bone peeking out from beneath the material and the way it glided smoothly and effortlessly beneath her skin as her chest moved up and down in time with her breathing made him want to reach out and run his finger across it to discover whether it was as smooth as it looked.

He was alarmed at his thoughts. He had never looked at Hermione in such a way before but it was suddenly occurring to him, all in one blindingly, overwhelming moment that she was an extremely beautiful girl with copious amounts of intelligence and humour that always kept him interested in things and constantly entertained.

Had he always felt so strongly about Hermione and just not realised it? Was this a new, exciting development in his emotions? Or was he just ill and coming down with the type of fever that makes you ever so slightly delusional?

The wind blew a few curly tendrils of her hair across her face once more and Harry watched as she attempted to blow them out of the way, the book to bulky and large to manoeuvre with one hand whilst trying to tie hair back with the other.

Harry gently took hold of the strands of hair and pushed them back behind her ear, the soft locks caressing his finger tips.

She looked at him, eyebrows furrowed. "Harry what are you -"

"Do you ever find it odd how people end up together? Just, completely out of the blue? I mean, Ron and Lavender. How did that even happen? One minute they hardly knew each other and the next they were snogging in every available corner of the common room, just like you said. Sometimes I wander if any of that fairy tale stuff actually does happen, like people being child hood friends and then growing up together and eventually getting married. I don't think it does happen very often but it would be quite nice to think that it does wouldn't it?"

Hermione shot Harry a very muddled expression.

"Well Lavender actually had a crush on Ron for months but never did anything about it." She chuckled, attempting to laugh away the awkwardness of the situation, and try and ignore the fact that Harry's hand was still gently caressing her cheek.

"Exactly. She never did anything about it. Nobody ever does anything about it. That's all film stuff isn't it? I mean, I would probably be with Cho Chang right now if after I'd kissed her last year I'd just said 'hey, do you want to be my girlfriend?' instead of getting all scared but its just human isn't it? You don't just ask people to be your girlfriend."

"Harry where exactly are you going with this?" Hermione asked, her eyes searching all over Harry's face for some sort of explanation as to why he was acting this way. His fingertips were still exploring the expanse of skin that was her flushed cheek and she couldn't deny the fact that it felt rather extraordinary and was sending what felt like tiny electric pulses down every nerve ending on her face.

"Hermione I think I have been mistaking you as one of my best friends for a very long time when really what you are is someone I want to be with for the rest of my life so I think that what I'm trying to say is something along the lines of...will you be my girlfriend?"

Hermione raised her hand so that it was placed over Harry's and a wide smile broke across her face, she had just been asked a question she didn't think any boy or man would ever actually ask her and whatever this absurd fluttery feeling in her stomach was, well it was telling her that she shouldn't deny his request.

"I suppose it wouldn't be too terrible if I was."

Harry smiled and slowly leant his face towards hers, hopeful that she wouldn't deny him what could be such a sweet kiss.

Their lips touched finally and Hermione wrapped her arms around Harry's neck. In return, he curled his around her waist.

With a dull thud as it close, Hermione's book toppled off of her lap and on to the grass. It was odd, she thought, that she didn't immediately want to scramble around to pick it up and return to it's original position whilst ensuring it was still in good condition.

They broke apart for a moment.

"After all the things we've done and talked about by this lake." Hermione paused, and chuckled coyly, "I never thought this would fall into the list."

Harry laughed and cupped her cheeks, bringing her lips back to his.

The two felt so at peace and as the sun shone down through their glorious oak tree, sending a warm glow of dappled light down onto their back, they each wandered to themselves why they had never thought of this before.


End file.
